People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1896 — REAL AND SHAM FRIENDS. [ARTICLE]

REAL AND SHAM FRIENDS.

Silver Has Been a Great Sufferer From Those of the Latter Kind. • The opponents of the Bland law in 1878 were waiting for international bi metallism. Mr. Cleveland mentioned the prospect of it in his message in 1888 and again this year. It was a valuable weapon in 1890, when the Sherman bill was passed and the Brussels conference was called in time to carry us over the last presidential election. We are still waiting, and those are waiting most patiently who favor a gold standard.— William J. Bryan in House of Representatives. It is unfortunate for the opponents of independent free coinage that all of our presidents since the silver agitation began have been gold monometallists in the disguise of international bimetallists. If the dealings of the executive branch of the government with the majority of the people for 20 years had not borne the aspect of a prolonged confidence game, we probably never should have had to force the present crisis. President Cleveland has been by far the worst offender. His entire administration has been devoted to discrediting the international bimetallism in which he has professed to believe. When he took office, he found the Brussels con? ference hopefully awaiting his summons to reconvene. He refused to give the word and allowed that dignified gathering to fade out of existence in a humiliating way, that gave monometallists ap opportunity for much gloaWug enjoyment Later silver became so strong in Germany as to force the reichstag to vote in favor of another conference. Mr. Cleveland gave this advance an icy reception. Congress provided for accepting the German invitation, if one should be received, and the president’s intimates exultingly showed how the technical wording of the resolution would allow it to be evaded, how the delegates appointed by congress could be deprived o£ their credentials and the United States could remain unrepresented.

If Mr. Cleveland had really desired to carry out his professions of regard for international bimetallism, he would have exerted the diplomatic activity of his administration in that direction instead of against it. He would have instructed every representative he sent abroad to sound the government to which he was accredited and see how far it would be willing to 1 co-operate with us. The Indian mints were closed three months after he took office. That could have been prevented. The fear that the United States would abandon its support to silver was the chief cause of the abolition of free coinage in India. Germany would willingly have entered into an engagement not to sell her remaining stock of old silver coins. Each country could have been led to pledge some assistance toward the restoration of the old bimetallic par, even if it did not go to the length of free coinage, and in the end the situation would have been found so effectively guarded at all points that the United States could have opened its mints without frightening any but persons of abnormal nerves. President Cleveland has missed his chance. He has lost the opportunity to secure enduring popularity fbr himself, unity for his party, harmony among sections for his country, prosperity for its people and the settlement of the financial question by amicable agreement instead of by a tug of war. He has bequeathed a hard and disagreeable task to bis successor, but he has made evident that the country needs a presi-"’hose-wishes are in harmony with

its own. The American people have been very patient, but after 20 years of broken promises they demand a change.—New York Journal.